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Cumbria is famous as the county of the English Lake District but it has more to offer than mountain walks. I don’t agree with Alfred Wainwright who said he could not see the point of walking round a mountain when you could climb to the top of it. There are many beautiful walks in the valleys and round the lakes which my wife (and my knees) much prefer over climbing and descending even if they don’t offer much scope for making radio contacts. Less well known, but just as spectacular, are parts of the coastline. One of our favourite outings is to park in the village of Sandwith and go for a walk along the cliffs. This is where we went last Sunday.

Map of the walk (from aprs.fi Google Maps)

The map of the walk shows the path that was tracked on Google Maps APRS, with some additions by me where my position was not tracked.

I was using my VX-8GR with the 5/8 telescopic whip in my rucksack, as shown in the picture on the right. I operate pedestrian portable like this when I don’t expect to encounter too many people who will give me strange looks or think I am a dork. The radio sits in a little mesh pocket on the side of the rucksack which was probably meant to carry a water bottle. The antenna is supported by pushing it through a string loop attached to one of the zips of the main pocket of the rucksack. It is quite stable and does not flex the spring or the mounting at all.

I don’t know what the SWR is like. Possibly it isn’t that good as the radio does not have me holding it to provide a ground plane. Perhaps I should try clipping a 19 inch “tail” to the outer ring of the BNC connector as a counterpoise? But even without it, it worked well. Most of my position beacons were received by MM1BHO across the water in Scotland so I was able to see the track after the walk. I also received some interesting APRS DX, of which more later.

But back to the walk. The weather was glorious, as you can see from the pictures. The temperature was around 20 degrees Celsius with only a slight breeze. The view from the cliffs was spectacular and always reminds me a bit of Cornwall. To think that people pay money to come on holiday to places like this!

We walked for about an hour along the cliffs, stopping now and again to watch some birds through binoculars or just take in the view. This is an important area for wildlife and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has set up several places where you can watch them with safety on the edge of the cliffs.

You can walk right along these cliffs as far as St. Bees, where there are people and cafes and ice cream kiosks. But we usually stop at Fleswick Bay, a beach backed by the high cliffs that is always quiet and secluded even in the height of the season because it isn’t possible to reach it by car, it can only be accessed by footpaths. We call it our private beach because we often have it to ourselves.

This Sunday we didn’t go down to the beach because we saw from the clifftops that the tide was in and the sea was right up to the foot of the cliffs. So we had our picnic lunch in one of the RSPB birdwatching areas instead. I made a couple of FM contacts using the VX-8GR, including one with another portable station on a 2,500ft mountain top in Wales. Then we started the walk back.

On the way back I heard the VX-8GR braaping away constantly such as I hadn’t heard since we were in Prague. On my return home I scrolled through the station list and observed that for a couple of minutes between 12:28 and 12:30 UTC I had received beacons from several DX stations including F4EQD-1 and OZ2DXE-2. These beacons had actually been digipeated by a station in south west England but that was still an amazing distance to receive signals on a VHF handheld, even if I didn’t hear them direct.

The glorious weather had also produced fantastic tropospheric propagation which was enjoyed by people in most parts of Europe. I wished I had climbed to the top of a mountain as I would certainly have heard more there than I did down on the west coast and perhaps have worked some real handheld VHF DX. But you can’t predict propagation and it was still a wonderful day’s walk.

I have just worked OZ1HXM on 2m SSB, using 100W to a SuperMoxon antenna in the attic of a house on the west coast of England with a lot of mountains between here and Denmark. The fact that he was using 200W to a pair of 10 element Yagis must have helped a bit!

This is my first European DX on 2m and I am thrilled to bits. I can only imagine what the band must be like for people with a decent VHF take-off. OZ1HXM is the only station I can currently hear on the band so there doesn’t seem to be much chance of working anyone else.

Series Three Episode Twenty-One of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast. News Stories include:

• Chinese Antarctic base on-air 
• Amateur Radio can prevent age-related dementia
• Isle of Man ARS on-air for JOTA
• Ham radio repeater at risk 
• GB7DE D-Star gateway offline 
• RSGB launch amateur radio survey 
• Power Line Adapters interfere with ambulance frequencies 
• Austrian Military Radio Society 50th anniversary 
• Green Comet approaches Earth
• EU Radio Spectrum Policy 
• New web-based HF SDR receiver 
• Irish radio amateur achieves 10-band DXCC 

Your feedback, upcoming events, and Martin (M1MRB) discusses operating in Australia with Adrian (M0GLJ).

Photograph 1 taken Sunday afternoon as rate drops in half and I’m logging California counties on 20m with the yagi pointed due east.

Photograph 2 illustrates my rate per hour through 17 hours of operation. What a blast operating CW through CQP weekend as 3 point Qs drove my score into six digits.

Photograph 3 is a list of sections worked and one notes band conditions were long especially on 15 and 20m however 10m never ionized over the weekend. I miss 10m activity and hope the band will finally play next year?

Photograph 4 is a continuation of sections worked and I did not log Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, or Utah in addition two Canadian sections as well.

Photograph 5 breaks down my country total and each European counted as new one against my DXCC pursuit. What a joy finally hearing stations across the Atlantic on the wireless set!

California QSO Party.
Rest is important going into any RadioSport event and fatigue does not help one’s morale when butt-in-the-chair time is a priority. I was wiped out when Saturday evening rolled across the ionosphere and called it at 0100 UTC when CW signals blurred my brain. I slept 12 hours then returned to the keyer catching long skip into Europe on Sunday morning.

I recognized many stations who filled the log at the shackadelic in Shell Beach and, what a hoot, logging Dave, K2DSL and Victor, KD2HE both of whom journal their wireless activities on the Internet.

Likewise, logging Bill, N6ZFO who was booming through the ICOM wireless on Sunday morning from Lake County. A great signal from his location. I want to thank the North California Contest Club for sponsoring a stellar event. The California QSO Party is world class!

KA3DRR/6 CQP Score.
40m = 92Qs and 1 Section.
20m = 376 Qs and 25 Sections.
15m = 222 Qs and 26 Sections.

Total Qs = 690
Total Sections = 52
Total Points = 107, 640

Spirit of Ham Radio.
Likewise John, W6SL is a stellar example when speaking about the spirit of ham radio and the friendship that follows our hobby. He opened his operating chair and put me in the pilot seat of his accomplished station. John is a 5 band DXCC operator with 300 plus entities to his credit. He is one who patiently waits for a new country recently logging Andorra not an easy feat from the west coast given the mountainous terrain surrounding this country.

The spirit of ham radio moves through the ether in mysterious ways. I was speaking with Dick Norton, N6AA about moving to the next level in RadioSport during an annual swap fest in Santa Maria, California. He mentioned guest operating just as W6SL walked within range of our conversation. John asked about my guest operating interest and invited me over without hesitation.

I enjoyed operating a wireless set using an amplifier and competitive grade antenna systems through last weekend because of John, W6SL.

Conclusion.
Rest is important going into an event. RadioSport is fun and reasonably defined goals make a difference in the operating chair. I logged new countries, grid squares, and counties through last weekend while learning about propagation using competitive grade antennas.

The spirit of ham radio endures through men like John, W6SL, Bill, N6ZFO, and organizations like the Northern California Contest Club.

73 from the shackadelic.

VA3OMP's 2m Moxon antenna

Back in August I was doing some simplex D-Star and D-RATs testing with Greg, VA3OMP on 145.67MHz. He lives in the West part of Ottawa in Kanata and I live in the South in Greely so to improve the link between us Greg constructed a 2m Moxon.  The antenna is built out of solid aluminium rod and as you can see he put some craftsmanship into building it.  Greg kindly agreed that  I could post the pictures and details here.

To determine the measurements Greg used the design program at the Moxon antenna project website. Here are the dimensions.

Moxon antenna design for 145_67 MHz

Greg reported the built antenna had an SWR of 1.6 :1 at the design frequency.

Here are set of pictures showing the construction.

Moxon ends secured with Plexiglas

Moxon ends secured (bolt side)

Feedpoint before sealing

Feedpoint sealed

Complete Moxon

Thanks to Greg, VA3OMP, for supplying and sharing his photographs and construction details.  All photographs are copyright to Greg Speakman, VA3OMP.

Ham radio forums have been alive with buzz in recent days about the pending release of the KG-UV920R, a new dual-band 2m/440 mobile radio from Wouxun. Ed Griffin from Wouxun.US is in China until October 25th and was not available for comment, but a photo of the radio appears on his website.  An anonymous but reliable source said that the radio is not yet in production, but that it could be available by early 2011 pending FCC certification.

How much will it cost?  The same reliable source did not have a firm answer but expected the price to be less than $300.  They also said that they expected a 2m/220 version in addition to the 2m/440 version.  When you start looking through the feature set (remote front panel, cross-band repeat), that’s quite a bit less than a comparable radio from other manufacturers.  Obviously, a lot can change between now and the final production release.  The specs and price could very well change significantly.  Hopefully Ed will stop by soon and provide us with some more information.

What do you think of Wouxun’s apparent entry into the mobile radio market?  Will you buy one?

(Images above from Wouxun.US and re-formatted for viewing)

I have just updated the smoothed sunspot number data file for VOAProp with the latest predicted values up to the year 2020. It’s one of those jobs I still do even though I long ago lost interest in the program, having come to the conclusion that the most interesting thing about HF radio propagation is its unpredictability.

Although NOAA updates its sunspot number predictions every month, I only update the data file every few months as the changes are too insignificant to make any difference to the VOAProp output. Since the last time I updated the file NOAA scientists seem to think that the maximum of the next cycle will occur a little later and be a tad higher than previously predicted, with a maximum SSN of 84.6 in the middle of 2013. They also don’t expect the next minimum at the end of 2019 to be as low as the last one.

This view is not shared by solar astronomers Matthew Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory in Arizona. They have been studying the magnetic strength of sunspots since 1990 and have observed that in that time it has fallen by nearly a third. If the trend continues, the astronomers believe, then by 2016 it will have fallen to the level below which the formation of sunspots is believed to be impossible. Though this prediction seems far fetched, it becomes a little more believable when writing about it on a day when there are once again no sunspots.

A period with almost no sunspots has occurred before, and not so long ago either, between 1645 and 1715, known as the Maunder Minimum. This period was also known as the Little Ice Age due to the fact that lower than average temperatures occurred in Europe. Time to sell our radios and invest in heating appliances, perhaps?

If nothing else, this example should show us that healthy scepticism, not credulity, is the sensible response to any scientific prediction. If you don’t care for what one bunch of boffins say, don’t worry, another bunch will be along in a few months claiming to prove just the opposite. It’s about time the global warming alarmists woke up to this.